US-Canadian businesses focus on 'other border'

TORONTO: Ketchum Public Affairs Canada recently began providing media outreach to the Canadian American Business Council (CABC) on issues related to the management of border trade between the US and Canada.

TORONTO: Ketchum Public Affairs Canada recently began providing media outreach to the Canadian American Business Council (CABC) on issues related to the management of border trade between the US and Canada.

Ketchum's "in-kind" work for the CABC, of which Ketchum recently became a member and had already been representing other CABC members IBM, Royal Bank of Canada, and patent law firm Borden Ladner Gervais, will focus on media within Ottawa and Washington, including the Globe and Mail and Washington Post, said Geoffrey Rowan, MD of Ketchum PR Canada.

Goals of the CABC include helping shape development of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI), which would set new rules for cross-border security screening and affect the estimated $2 billion in US-Canadian commerce that occurs every day, and the harmonization of environmental and intellectual property regulations among the US, Canada, and Mexico.

"With the Congress just coming back, advocacy on the WHTI has begun," said CABC executive director Maryscott Greenwood. "There's an opportunity to make sure that there's some pretty serious oversight with the agencies involved," including the Department of Homeland Security.